The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim - Dragonborn DLC Review

This is a discussion on The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim - Dragonborn DLC Review within the Game Reviews forum, part of the Trophy Guides, Reviews & Articles; Skyrim: Dragonborn DLC
by Nagflar
Sig by Ramon3110
Basic Information:
Developer: Bethesda Game Studios
Publisher: Bethesda Softworks
North American Release ...

Dragonborn is the last DLC released for Bethesda's hugely successful game Skyrim, and it's also the first one to make its way to the PlayStation 3. Adding lots of new contents - including a whole new area - it promises to be a great addition to the game, like previous DLCs were for Oblivion.

Gameplay

Like previously stated, Dragonborn added tons of new content to Skyrim, making it pretty much an expansion to the game. The new area they added is a small-sized island named Solstheim and it comes packed with lots of new content: new enemies, armor, weapons, ingredients, spells, and even shouts.

At first you might think that alone might make make it worth the money, but hold your horses for a minute. Yes, you have more creatures to murder at will, more armors to wear and weaposn to wield and you can use new shouts (one of them even letting you fly on a dragon), but all this content feels rather disappointing. The new weapons are decent, but they're nowhere near as good as the best available ones you could get in Skyrim in the first place. The same goes for the new armor pieces. The ingredients, while nice and very useful to make a few potions for specific tasks (such as fortifying light armor) are rather useless, for you could easily find other variants in the core game. Sadly, the new enemies also fail to bring anything new to the table, let alone a good challenge, for most of them can only offer a real fight on the highest difficulty settings, and even then, a high leveled character with great equipment will make short work of most of them.

All that small-time content aside, the new shouts are actually worth your time, with two of them being pretty much the most powerful in the whole game (core game included). Not only can you now summon twisters to send your foes flying, enchant your allies' weapons and improve your attack and defense, but you can also completely pacify enemies - including dragons, which ultimately, lets you ride them and watch them spit fire at your enemies' faces. However, even if it looks great watching a half-naked Viking look-alike riding a dragon, you can't really control it. It'll attack whatever it sees that's considered your enemy and it'll fly randomly around the world map. You can simply give it a few directions, which are to attack an enemy or to land so you may stop riding it, which is very disapponting.

Some of the game's new additions might look cool, but they're ultimately needless and sub-par compared to their core game's counter-parts.

The DLC adds a few more perks available through side-quests, too, which offer a few bonuses. Among them is the ability to summon a merchant at will for a few seconds or being able to reassign perks at the cost of a Dragon Soul. These bonuses might be one of the best additions, too, but they could be useless by the time you get them, depending on how far you are into the game.

Singleplayer

The story of Dragonborn begins when you, after completing a certain task in the main game's storyline, are approached by two mysterious guys telling you that the real Dragonborn has come and that your time is at an end, which leads to a fight you (should) win. Upon investigating their corpses, you find out they come from a place known as Solstheim, and thus begins your quest to find out who this Dragonborn is, what's he doing and why he wanted you dead, ultimately ending, quite predictably, with a battle with him to settle the score.

The story itself is short, but it still offers quite a few memorable battles, moments and conversations - including one with a certain Daedric Prince. That said, the lore they added to Solstheim is interesting and entertaining, enriching the already deep lore found throughout the series by the use of the various side-quests found in the island. Said side-quests also happen to be numerous (much more than one would expect, given the size of Solstheim) and quite enjoyable.

Some of the new areas are really entertaining, but one wishes the enemy's were more of a challenge, like Cthulhu here.

The DLC also tries to differentiate Solstheim from Skyrim as much as possible, so you don't really feel you're simply walking through the same places over and over again and to emphasize on the fact that you're closer to Morrowind, which is completely different. Sadly, they didn't exactly succeed at this, for many of the dungeons feel the same as before and one can't help to think they simply copied the snowy areas from Skyrim and added a few new enemies to make it feel different.

Technical

Dragonborn is, in true Bethesda fashion, flawed. There are many times you'll find yourself experiencing previous bugs found in the core game (even those that patches had already fixed) and you'll naturally bump into new ones more exclusive to the DLC's additions, not to mention the amount of glitches that randomly occur, like characters not completing their dialogues when they're supposed to, corpses falling through the ground, quest progression not being recorded, and so on and so forth.

That aside, the game still looks good and Solstheim is a well-crafted new location. I can say without a doubt that Morrowind's Red Mountain standing out in the background is a good sight, as well as traveling around the world while riding a dragon - regardless of the fact that you can't control it.

Trophies

The trophies for the DLC are very simple, straightforward and hardly offer a challenge. They range from completing the story to exploring the island and involving yourself in quite a few side-quests. It shouldn't take long to complete it, even more so if you're using a previous save with an overpowered character. Closing Thoughts

Dragonborn hardly offers enough new features to guarantee being purchased, but for people who really enjoyed Skyrim and fell in love with the game it ought to be more than enough.

Gameplay: 6/10A bunch of new additions, with most of them being needless and hardly worth using.
Singleplayer: 8/10
Enjoyable and very entertaining, offering a few memorable moments plus a lot of side-quests worth checking out.

Technical: 6/10While Solstheim is well done, it adds nothing worth noting. The game still looks and plays the same. It also bugs out on you as usual.

Pretty agreeable review. I probably would have rounded it up to a 7 myself, but yeah, quite underwhelming.

And yes, the new armors and weapons aren't as powerful stat-wise as the base game Daedric armors, etc, but don't even tell me Nordic Carved Armor isn't the most badass (and fitting) Skyrim armor. Because you're wrong.

Click for some context for this signature. It rotates the lyric every time it's reloaded!

Pretty agreeable review. I probably would have rounded it up to a 7 myself, but yeah, quite underwhelming.

And yes, the new armors and weapons aren't as powerful stat-wise as the base game Daedric armors, etc, but don't even tell me Nordic Carved Armor isn't the most badass (and fitting) Skyrim armor. Because you're wrong.

I can't disagree on that aspect. Some of the new items look great. Hell, the Stalhrim armor and weapons are beautiful! I forged 'em all (as well as the weapons and the shield) and started using them just to look great while murdering Werebears and stuff.

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I think this DLC deserves the exact same score as the stand-alone game, which is subjective to each gamer. If you enjoyed Skyrim, then Dragonborn is more of the same. There is a bit of new content and the experiences are memorable, but it won't blow your mind in any way shape or form. You will have plenty of fun playing it though. I know I did.

Well it's a DLC, and you review it like you are disappointed because it looks and plays like Skyrim, I played it on PC and there's no way I would give that DLC this rating, again I don't know how buggy it is on PS3

I think this DLC deserves the exact same score as the stand-alone game, which is subjective to each gamer. If you enjoyed Skyrim, then Dragonborn is more of the same. There is a bit of new content and the experiences are memorable, but it won't blow your mind in any way shape or form. You will have plenty of fun playing it though. I know I did.

Being more of the same is not a good piece of DLC, its just a continuation, thus the average score.

By what you said, any shitty DLC could be gaining a 9/10 or a 10/10 for being more of the same, but that leaves no room for improvement, so what would the actual good dlc get?

Don't read too much into the scores, hell even the score captions back up nags thoughts well enough. With that type of score it's obvious that if you enjoyed the game and simply want more of the same, buy it and you'll enjoy it. However, it still may not a fantastic aspect solely on its own

Well it's a DLC, and you review it like you are disappointed because it looks and plays like Skyrim, I played it on PC and there's no way I would give that DLC this rating, again I don't know how buggy it is on PS3

A DLC is supposed to be an expansion. It's supposed to be the same at its core, but differentiate itself enough from the game to warrant a purchase. This is Skyrim with a few little different environments, a few enjoyable quests, some new cool-looking items (that ultimately offer nothing more than that) and that's it. It's hardly an expansion. It's more like they simply added two new dungeons to the game with a few cool stories and good-looking (but needless) items that ultimately are the same as every other dungeon in the game.

The final score isn't all that related to the game still being buggy as hell, but because it promised a lot, failed at it, and ultimately gave you a few good things (most notably the main and side quests) and whole ton of useless shit. Even if I had played it on the PC, the DLC would still deserve nothing higher than a 7-7.5, because that's what it is: above-average DLC.

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A DLC is supposed to be an expansion. It's supposed to be the same at its core, but differentiate itself enough from the game to warrant a purchase. This is Skyrim with a few little different environments, a few enjoyable quests, some new cool-looking items (that ultimately offer nothing more than that) and that's it. It's hardly an expansion. It's more like they simply added two new dungeons to the game with a few cool stories and good-looking (but needless) items that ultimately are the same as every other dungeon in the game.

The final score isn't all that related to the game still being buggy as hell, but because it promised a lot, failed at it, and ultimately gave you a few good things (most notably the main and side quests) and whole ton of useless shit. Even if I had played it on the PC, the DLC would still deserve nothing higher than a 7-7.5, because that's what it is: above-average DLC.

I understand, maybe you are right. Hard for me to read 6.5 rating on a DLC to my 10/10 game lol